


Bruce

by PhantomGrimalkin



Category: Marvel, The Incredible Hulk - All Media Types
Genre: Bruce Feels, Character Death, Domestic Violence, Gen, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-09
Updated: 2015-01-09
Packaged: 2018-03-06 19:09:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3145373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhantomGrimalkin/pseuds/PhantomGrimalkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief tale of the ill-fated relationship between Rebecca and Brian Banner, and how Bruce came to go by his middle name.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bruce

**Author's Note:**

> There's nothing graphic here, but Bruce's backstory is tragic and awful and deals with some horrible stuff. Don't read anything involving Bruce's past and expect it to be happy.
> 
> I don't think that Rebecca gets enough love, and this also addresses a headcanon of mine that I know a lot of people share. This is just something I needed to get out of my head, so I did.

It had all started well enough. They met while she was in college and he was a graduate student. He was shy and nervous until you got him talking about science, when his inner spark finally shown through. She loved that about him, and he loved that she knew enough to keep up despite majoring in English and she gave him the pushes he needed to excel.

They dated for years, marrying only after Brian had gotten his PhD and a good job. Rebecca had been working in an office while writing on the side, and was delighted when Brian suggested she quit that job to focus on her writing. They both agreed not to have children. Rebecca was simply content without, although she would have been just as content to have them. Brian insisted he didn't want to add to over-population, preferring to focus on nuclear power as his contribution to the world.

It was impossible to pinpoint exactly when things started going down-hill. Gradually, Brian's drinking increased. Paranoia dripped in. It happened slowly, never reaching truly dangerous levels.

Until the day Rebecca found out she was pregnant.

Initially she was shocked, they had always been careful, but soon was delighted. Although she knew Brian had never had any specific desire for children, she was sure he would as well. Instead, he simply told her that he had no interest in raising a child and walked out of the house.

For the first time in over a year, Rebecca called her mother, who shared her joy and assured her that Brian just needed time. After hanging up the phone, Rebecca was struck with a sense of deep loneliness. She had never meant to go so long without reaching out to her family. Brian's job had moved them far from anyone she had known, and she hadn't really made friends. Brian refused to talk about his family and insisted that they were enough for each other. It had sounded romantic, now it sounded bittersweet.

Brian never did come around. He refused to even acknowledge the pregnancy. The only time she managed to get him to engage her in conversation about it was when she raised the suggestion of names and suggested, for a boy, 'Bruce'.

It was the first time she had ever seen her husband in a rage. The second he heard the name, he became enraged, shouting accusations and demands at her so quickly she couldn't fully make sense of it. She shrank into her chair, cradling her swollen belly and sobbing apologies while he loomed over her.

He stormed out of the house, almost certainly to go to some bar. It had become an all too frequent occurrence by then. When he came home, he acted as though his episode had never even happened, planting a kiss on her temple and softly suggesting that he'd always been fond of the name 'Robert'.

Rebecca managed to convince herself that it was a fluke. That it was pregnancy hormones blowing it out of proportion. After all, it had never happened before. Although their relationship was falling apart at the seams, she still believed that the man she had fallen in love with was in there. The pregnancy books and her doctors assured her that this and the first year or two of having a baby were just hard, not to make any rash decisions.

After Brian had refused to come into the room during labor or even after the delivery to see his own child, the doctor finally asked her what name to put on the birth certificate. Rebecca looked down at the precious, perfect boy in her arms and remembered the rage that his name had caused. With a deep breath she finally said, “Robert Bruce Banner.”

It was a testament to how little attention Brian paid to the boy that he didn't realize until the court case. Rebecca had simply presented him as 'Robert Banner', saying that they had never discussed a middle name. If Brian had cared, he didn't show it.

Brian always called him 'Robert', never any nickname, and Rebecca always used some pet name. When they were alone, though, and Rebecca was holding her child and soothing him, she would always quietly use the name she had chosen. When he was old enough to speak, she'd remind him that it was a secret, a name just between them.

Brian's attitude continued to be an ever so gradual decline. It would be over a year until he went into another rage. Like the frog placed in lukewarm water that was slowly heated to a boil, by the time Rebecca realized how bad things were, it was too late. Or perhaps it had always been lurking below the surface, and if she had tried to leave even before their son was born it would have ended the same way. In the end, it was impossible to know and didn't really matter.

* * *

 

Susan finished signing the last in a long pile of papers, nervously gnawing her lip. It was all so much to take in. The woman behind the counter gave her a sympathetic smile and called the social worker to say they were finished.

“Go through that door, he's waiting for you,” the woman told her kindly.

Susan stared at her for a long moment before finding the courage to do so. The social worker stood at the door and shook her hand, talking to her about the final steps, but she stared past her and at the small boy curled into himself, staring through a book in his lap. Finally the social worker gave her a soft smile and gestured for her to go over to him.

She took a few steps, keeping a good distance from him just in case. He looked up nervously at her and she couldn't help but notice her brother in him, and felt her stomach lurch at the thought.

“Robert?” she asked quietly, as if there could have been a mistake.

The boy flinched at that and hugged the book to his chest, “Actually, it's Bruce.”

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't read loads of the comics concerning Bruce's past. Or Brian's, for that matter. Apparently Brian's dad was also abusive, leading him to believe he had a "monster gene" that his paranoia about radiation exacerbated. His name? Bruce Banner. Yeah. Which fits my "Rebecca called him Bruce, Brian called him Robert" headcanon just fine. So if his exploding over the name didn't make sense to you- well, now hopefully it does.
> 
> I tried to indicate that Brian had abusive tendencies before Bruce was born, such as the isolation, so it's not like "everything was fine and then Bruce screwed it up".


End file.
